Rain of biblical proportions

With all the recent hoopla over picking a new pope I’m reminded of the line in “The Truck Got Stuck” where Corb Lund refers to the rain causing biblical fears.  The last time they got one of these heavy rainfall events it didn’t really amount to much in Cow Bay.  I actually did most of the solar install right through the “worst” of that rain event.  This time I’m on the mainland and while I haven’t seen any animals lining up in pairs it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.

I’m waiting for Bruce to come over because we’ve got a little project planned to finish up my solar installation.  I probably wouldn’t have gone back to the island anyway – its been raining hard enough to restrict visibility. 

Yesterday I took advantage of a brief break in the downpour to go over to Granville and then walk up to Steveston’s.  Our macerator pump seems to be on its last legs and Steveston’s had one on sale.  I’ll likely procrastinate the actual installation until its essential because its shit that it is macerating.  At least this way when it finally gives up completely I will have a spare to install.

On the way back from Granville I noticed that the outboard wasn’t peeing water.  I don’t always remember to check that so its hard to say how long it might have been that way although I think I look pretty regularly.  I took the leg apart yesterday and couldn’t see anything wrong, put it back together, wrastled it back down the ladder and onto the dinghy, reinstalled it and of course it still didn’t work.  The impeller was still intact but the second time when I took everything apart and pulled the impeller out I could tell that it was likely too hard to do much pumping anymore.  There was still steam coming out the pee hole so likely the impeller had been pushing a small amount of water up but nowhere near as much as it should have been.  Anyway, I tracked down a supplier and it turns out they have a store just a little over a mile east of where I’m anchored.  So this morning I rowed over to the nearest dinghy dock and set out walking in the rain. 

The repair kit was only a little over $30 so I bought a spare and fortunately when I got everything bolted back together, once again wrastled the motor back down the ladder and mounted it on the dinghy, it pee’d water out very aggressively.  This afternoon we got a brief break in the rain so I made a run back down to Granville and picked up some blank mooring permits.  Everything worked well so I think that problem is behind us for a few years anyway.  I’m glad I caught it when I did because there’s no safety systems on that old motor.  If it runs dry it just turns the motor into a really poor boat anchor.  Although now that I think about it I could probably cobble up a safety shutdown system similar to what I used on the bus generator – something else to put on the to do list.